Leak in new house

[DarkDarkNight]

I completed last week but have only just moved in tonight (this was because I have had to get a plumber to look at the boiler losing pressure). I had a shower earlier and have just been to the downstairs toilet and noticed a big pool of water on the window sill and the ledge below.

I thought it may have been from the window but saw some water on the wall away from the window so I wiped up all the water and went to run the bath tap upstairs. Sure enough I came down and could see the water running down the wall and a small pool on the window ledge.

I don’t think this is a new problem as there is a border round the very top of the wall peeling away a bit and when I pulled it it is a bit black underneath.

I feel so clueless, obviously I need a plumber but will it likely be a big job? Is there any point in contacting my solicitor or is it just a case of caveat emptor?

Solicitor - no harm asking. But unless the vendor was persuaded to make some sort of representation by the enquiries your solicitor made of her then it is pretty much caveat emptor.

Plumber - impossible to say how much it will cost. It sounds like it's either a leak from the waste pipe (theoretically could be that something just needs tightening up), a failure of the sealant or grouting in the shower, or a split in a plastic shower tray (could mean entire shower enclosure needs to come out, be striped back to brickwork and everything installed from scratch!).

To be honest if it was an easy fix I would have thought there vendor would have fixed it. So it's more likely to be a tricky one.

To be honest if it was an easy fix I would have thought there vendor would have fixed it. So it's more likely to be a tricky one.

That's not necessarily true, the vendors may have just thought it was a tricky fix so didn't look into it. We had a big leak behind the washing machine when we moved in and the plumber said it must have been going on for weeks - there is no way our vendors would not have known about it. But it was fixed in 5 mins by just replacing a small pipe that had worn out, so not tricky at all, just laziness/incompetence from the previous owners!

I’m hoping it’s just a quick fix! It’s a shower over a nath rather than a separate shower enclosure.

There’s no way they can’t have known - the water pool was very obvious and the border is out of place deco wise so may have been put there to conceal.

It is caveat emptor. Did you have it surveyed? They should have picked it up. Get a plumber in. The cost will depend how they can access the leak (if tiles or flooring needs removing or if they can go up from below) and if it's just a poor connection or whatever.

Something similar happened to me. A few weeks after buying the house, we came home to water dripping through the living room door frame during a rain storm. I bumped into the vendor a few months later, and he had the gall to ask me if I had fixed the leak!!!

witsendeverytime yes I got a Homebuyers Survey which is what the company recommended, they said I didn’t need a full structural survey. It didn’t mention anything problematic about the bathroom.

It’s actually the one room that looked like it wouldn’t need anything doing to it funnily enough.

chezbomb I am discovering more and more to be suspicious of.

Sounds like a problem with the waste pipe or seal around the bath. Have you taken the panel off to look? It might be simple to fix.

I had similar and it was a badly tiled near the joint where the tiles met the bath. There was one or two tiles moving so water was getting in and we had a damp patch on the hall ceiling below. Trouble was it took until the third plumber to diagnose it. Does the sealing look good around the bath and also around the taps. If the taps get soaked when you have a shower it can let water through too. Could be simply a case of resealing it. Is the silicone in good condition? That would be the best outcome and the first thing to look at.

Thank you. The sealing looks a bit dodgy - the more I look the more people badly finished the whole house looks. The neighbour said to my dad after I moved in he was known for bodge DIY jobs, I’m not sure how she knew that though.

Hopefully just a simple fix but I will get a plumber on Monday as I won’t have a clue about removing the bath panel. I want to see how much damage there already is.